Crawfish

Common Name:

Crawdad, red swamp crayfish, mudbug, crayfish

Product Information:

Crawfish meat is sweet like lobster meat but more tender and not quite as rich. Alive, red swamp crawfish are red to nearly black; white-river crawfish are light to dark brown. All crawfish cook up brilliant red. Raw meat is grayish in color. Cooked meat should be a clean white. Softshell crawfish are those that have just molted.Make sure live product is indeed alive before cooking. As with lobster, the meat deteriorates rapidly after death. Crawfish fat, sometimes called head fat, is yellow and contains most of the flavor. It can be purchased as a separate product. Removing it from crawfish meat improves the shelf life.

Cooking Tips:

For a classic preparation, boil in spicy Cajun or Creole seasonings or use Scandinavian dill seasonings. Jambalaya, bisque and etouffeé are traditional presentations. Use only live, clean crawfish. Cook immediately by dropping into boiling water. Keep them cold until ready to cook. Live crawfish should splay their claws when grabbed. If an animal is limp or its tail doesn’t curl when cooked, toss it.

Cooking Methods: